


That kind of love never dies

by TexanRanchGirl101



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Augustines, Cannon divergent Legacies, Canon-Typical Violence, Endgame Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, F/M, Post cannon TO, Post cannon TVD, Protective!Klaus (Hope and Caroline), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2020-12-14 20:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 18,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21021428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TexanRanchGirl101/pseuds/TexanRanchGirl101
Summary: Set a few months after the season one finale of Legacies (with the cannon divergence that Landon never dropped the artifact and they hid it in a prison world so Hope never goes into Malivore). Hope resurrects Klaus because her family needs his help overthrowing the Augustines who have taken Rafiel. It is later revealed that the reason they know it's the Augustines who have taken Rafiel is that Keelin and Caroline escaped their capture a few months ago. What is a rescue mission to Hope and Caroline is a revenge mission for Freya, and quickly becomes one for Klaus as well. Putting mixed motivations aside they all work together to dismantle this powerful organization for the protection of their family and their school.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is appreciated, but please be specific. Thank you for your time.

Hope felt as though she had been chanting for hours, probably because she had been. Unfortunately the stakes were too high to stop because she was getting tired, and on she went; sitting cross-legged and slightly bent over a bowl filled with ashes and blood “Cinis est ex carne, ut non reverteretur, a tenebris ad lucem reditus, reditus a morte ad vitam“. As she finished the spell for what must’ve been the millionth time the ashes and blood began to levitate and take shape, growing into the shape of a man. She got up and ran to grab a blanket to cover him as he gasped and returned to life. She couldn’t help from smiling even as he coughed and gasped and looked up at her in complete shock. “Hope” said Klaus having returned to the land of the living. “Hi, dad” Hope said bewildered and overjoyed. He reaches out and embraces her “how is this possible? How did you bring me back?” Hope pulls back and says “I found out a while ago from a necromancer that you might not be at peace, so I asked Alaric to look into it. Apparently he found out a while ago that you had been trapped in a pocket dimension upon your death” she waved a hand dismissively “Some centuries old spell from a witch you must’ve pissed off so badly she never wanted you to find peace, or to bother her on the other side, probably thought you’d die a long time ago” They both chuckle “well I always did have a penchant for exceeding expectations” Klaus said with a grin. “So…..what was it like where you were?” Hope said apprehensively. “Not as bad as you might expect given that it was meant for a punishment. It was mostly black and empty, I was able to see flashes of the lives of the people I’d left behind”, he smiled wistfully and hope started crying. “I saw you happy, I hope that was real, it was impossible to be sure”. “It was” Hope said with a watery smile. “I believe time passed differently there, it felt like only a few weeks, but the images I saw from your life, the lovely young woman I see before me…how long have I been dead?” Klaus asked. “About two and a half years, they’ve been…eventful” Hope looked down regretfully. Klaus’ face fell “what aren’t you telling me?” “Alaric found out where you were and how to bring you back eight months ago, but, well…he’s not exactly your biggest fan” Klaus clenched his jaw, visibly restraining himself from rushing out of there to throttle Alaric despite the ridiculousness of doing so whilst nude under a blanket. “He only gave me the spell now because we need your help” Hope said with just a hint of desperation that changed Klaus’ anger to fatherly concern. “What’s wrong?” Klaus asked her, she was silent for a beat and then said “My friend is missing, and we think we know who took him. They’re too powerful for us to go up against alone. An organization known as the Augustine society, have you heard of them?” “I’d heard rumblings, ages ago, about a society of human medical doctors that used vampires for their research. It never sounded particularly formidable” Klaus admitted. “Well they seem to have evolved. They’re now interested in all supernatural creatures and they’re well-funded, international, well protected by a small army of loyal vampires, and worst of all cloaked. They seem to have some very powerful witches on the payroll” Hope explained. “How do you know all of this?” Klaus asked. “It’s a long story, and I should probably let aunt Freya explain-“ Klaus cut hope off asking “How is Freya involved in this?” “Aunt Keelin was taken by them four months ago” Hope said and Klaus’ reaction was that of sheer horror. Hope held up her hand and said “don’t worry, she escaped after only a few weeks, she said she wasn’t treated too badly, werewolves are more rare, they were mostly just observing her, but Freya is furious, she’s wanted revenge since she got out, but she didn’t have any leads” Klaus runs his hand down his face and stands up wrapping the blanket around himself “well, if it’s revenge she’s after, she’s got the perfect brother” Klaus drawled. “where is she now? Speaking of which where are we?” Hope smiles “At school, this is my room. Let me get you some clothes and then I’ll take you to around, I have some people I want you to meet and I’m sure Freya will be happy to see you alive and well”. 

With Klaus dressed and more well informed than before he and Hope wandered further out into the school they entered the grand room where Alaric and Matt were talking. They both saw Klaus and looked shocked, the room was still with stunned silence when Caroline walked in with clipboard in hand talking with Dorian about the new math curriculum when she stopped in her tracks having locked eyes with Klaus. “Hello love” Klaus said with his usual wicked grin. Caroline, looking confused, pointed at him with the pen she was holding and looked to Matt and Ric asking ”Do you see him too?” Hope interjected with a smile “He’s really here, he’s back, I did a spell, blood calling out to blood and all that. I brought him back, he’s here to help us”. Caroline smiled, breathed out a soft chuckle, she looked almost….relieved. She slowly walked toward Hope and Klaus, putting the clipboard and pen down on the dresser on the way. When she is within arm’s reach she stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around Klaus’ neck. During their embrace, while smiling wider than anyone had seen in a while and with tears in her eyes she said, “Welcome back”. Klaus put his arms around her waist and breathed a sigh of relief, as though he finally believed that he was home again.


	2. Chapter 2

Caroline pulled away, after just one moment too long, and asked “Does Freya know you’re back?” “We were just on our way to find her; do you know where she is?” Hope asked. “she’s in the library with Keelin, it’s just down there, I’ll give you some family time” Caroline said with a soft smile before picking up the clipboard and walking to her office with Dorian who asks Caroline very quietly “am I supposed to know who that is?” Eliciting a laugh, a head shake, and a “we’ll talk later” from Caroline.   
A very happy Hope said, “Come on” and laughed before leading Klaus into the library. When they walked in Freya’s jaw dropped “Klaus” she said “How?” “I’m back, dear sister, thanks to Hope, and apparently to Alaric who gave her the spell, albeit somewhat begrudgingly” Klaus said as her made his way towards Freya for another reunion hug which she immediately reciprocated. As he pulled away he said, “Now then, I hear revenge is in order?” “And on that note…” Keelin said walking towards Hope and taking her by the hand “come on, let’s leave them to talk gory details”. 

When the door to the library closed with a click Klaus turned back to Freya and said, “Hope told me that she was taken, how is she holding up?” “She’s alright, considering, a little jumpy still, but that’s to be expected….I however am so filled with rage I’m surprised my head hasn’t exploded of its own accord” Freya said. “That’s quite understandable; however what is more difficult to understand is how she was able to escape an organization so powerful you needed to resurrect me to deal with them” Klaus said. “She wouldn’t have been. Thank God Caroline was there, she had been planning her escape for months and when Keelin was captured and dumped in the cell across from hers she recognized her and freed her as well” Freya said finally looking Klaus in the eye, she realized how murderous his expression had become. “I take it you care about her. Caroline I mean, and I take it you also didn’t know that she was taken too” Freya asked. “Tell me. Tell me what happened. The whole story.” Klaus demanded through clenched teeth. “I can’t say that I know every detail, but basically six months ago when Caroline was in Spain working with a coven of heretics to recruit some young syphonite witches to the school she and some of the heretics were betrayed by someone they trusted and sold out to the Augustines. They were separated and Caroline and a woman named Valerie were sent to a branch of the society located somewhere in Louisiana” Freya explained “A branch?” Klaus asked. “Yes. I believed them to be a much smaller operation before Caroline called us here a few days ago, apparently the founder of the Augustines was quite the patriarch. His sons had their own branches with their own test subjects and their sons after them. Seven grandsons in total, which means seven locations globally. One was at Whitmore, but it was relocated after an uprising in 1958. Security measures at all other locations were doubled after that and they’ve evolved with the times. Their Louisiana location would have been impenetrable, but Caroline being, well Caroline, she got people talking.” Freya paused, hesitating to disclose the rest as Klaus already looked somewhere between proud and horrified, but she continued out of necessity “her father taught her well, she used the power of her mind to overcome the pain the way he did to overcome vampiric compulsion. It enabled her to have full conversations with the doctors that were performing experiments on her. And they didn’t hold back because, well why would they? She gathered enough information about the people that worked there and the place itself to plot an escape. I don’t have the exact details about the escape, but I got the feeling she did some things she regrets for her freedom, and Keelin’s so I didn’t pry.” Freya finished and Klaus nodded somberly, gripping the back of a chair a bit too aggressively. “whatever her plan was it was already in place when Keelin was taken from the Bayou in New Orleans because she managed to break both of them out within five days of Keelin’s arrival. So just long enough for me to violently interrogate everyone with supernatural ties within the tri state area and come up with nothing” Klaus chuckled lightly and said, “well that must’ve been awkward” Freya smiled and said, “Nothing I couldn’t manage, and I got Keelin back alive and intact, but blood still needs to be shed” “I couldn’t agree more, but the question remains, why wait three months” Klaus asked impatiently. “Oh trust me I wanted to burn the place to the ground immediately, but Caroline wasn’t interested in revenge, she just wanted to run and stay safe, keep her family safe. I would’ve proceeded without her, but she had much more information, all I had was Keelins vague recollection of a location somewhere in the woods. It wasn’t enough to go off of, I’ve been searching this whole time, but I was stuck until Caroline called a few days ago. Apparently a few students have gone missing recently and she connected the dots back to the society. The first two were at home for the summer, their parents called her, and the last one was a friend of Hope’s” Klaus appeared to perk up at that. “He’s a wolf himself and was with Hope and Landon on a visit to New Orleans to meet some of the crescent pack. He grew up in foster care and didn’t know any of his family, the only wolves he knew were teenagers from the school, he wanted to see how a real pack worked. He was taken from the same woods as Keelin. Just disappeared without a trace. And, we put it together, the disappearances, they were connected to Augustine. Caroline had no choice but to help me fight them to get the missing kids back, she was willing to let them off the hook if it kept her girls safe, but no one is really safe while they’re out there” Freya finished her explanation and looked to her brother, somber and still. Klaus exhaled heavily and said, “Well then, where shall we start?” Freya smiled sadly and said, “with a Mikaelson family strategy session of course. Come, let’s find Hope and the others, maybe we can talk about it over dinner”.


	3. Chapter 3

They left to find Hope and Keelin talking in the kitchen “So shall we catch up over dinner? Perhaps that dreadful Grill the locals are so found of” Klaus quipped. “Yeah, I’d like that” Hope said smiling. “Go fetch Caroline and Alaric, we’re going to talk a bit of strategy” Freya said to Hope, and she went along to find them. Hope returned with the requested people as well as Landon. “Ah, I see it’ll be quite the welcome back party” Klaus said sarcastically. Hope laughed and said “Dad, there’s someone I want you to meet” she gestured to Landon “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Landon. Landon this, is my dad”. Klaus raised his eyebrows in a combination of surprise and suspicion, Landon gave a friendly, if nervous, smile and extended his hand “Nice to meet you sir”. Klaus eyed the hand suspiciously, then looked to his daughter who seemed quite happy and shook the poor boy’s hand half out of pity and half out of a desire to please his little girl. “Nice to meet you as well….Well, you must join us for dinner” he said. “uh, yeah” Landon said looking to Hope who nodded “yeah, that’d be great, thanks”. Caroline smiled at Klaus proudly from behind the children. Alaric still pretty much looked like he wanted to kill him, but that was to be expected. “So let’s talk” Alaric said stoically. 

They find a table at the grill and Alaric starts right away with “So we’ve been looking through the lore trying to find a way around their cloaking spells, but nothing yet” “so we’ve moved on to an idea that necessitates a bit more brute force” Caroline interrupted. “Ah, thus explaining why you were finally willing to allow my daughter to resurrect me” Klaus accused looking Alaric squarely in the eye. Caroline looked between the two men “what is he talking about?” she asked Alaric who sat looking guilty. Alaric set his jaw and glared at Klaus “I hardly think this is the time or place for this discussion” “I hardly think this is the time or place to talk about any of this. Klaus you just got back, are you sure you wouldn’t rather take some time alone with your family to catch up and get acclimated before we drag you into this whole hunt” Caroline pleaded. “No, luv, this matter is pressing and quite important to my family and myself” Klaus said leaning back in his seat with his trademark devilish grin he drawled “please do elaborate on that brute force”. Caroline broke out into a smile that quickly turned to a chuckle she hadn’t quite recovered from when she began speaking “um, well if we go after the Augustine family directly they’ll know that we’re on to them, they live separately, it would be impossible to kill them all at once. Frankly it would be almost impossible to kill even one, they’re well-guarded and paranoid” “well, in fairness, we are out to get them” Hope added “Ideally before they hurt Raf” Landon interjected” “yes, but we’ll have to go about it indirectly” Caroline said “They subcontract to a group of mercenaries to, let’s say, ‘recruit’ test subjects” Klaus looked at her with concern and she avoided eye contact “They’re vampires and invulnerable to compulsion, but with an Original on our side we’d only need to find one and bleed them of vervain. They might not know much about the locations of the facilities, but they might know enough to get us started. I knew the one who sold us out fairly well, he has a friend not too far from here that I suspect is also affiliated with their group, if Richard doesn’t know that we’ve escaped he won’t have taken steps to protect himself, but even if he does he wouldn’t think to protect his friends” “I see, well if all you needed was an original to compel a vampire, why not Marcellus or Rebekah, why bother with bringing me back from the dead?” Klaus inquired, returning his stare to Alaric. “Because I doubt that is all we’ll need before this is through, there are seven facilities and the kids could be at any one of them, we’re out gunned and out manned and a pain-in-the-ass hybrid who can’t die, but wouldn’t be missed if he was taken captive, is, unfortunately an asset” Alaric retorted. “I would miss him. I have been missing him. This whole time and you kept the spell from me on purpose” Hope barked. “whoa, what is going on? Ric you gave her the spell. When did you even find it?” Caroline asked. “Eight months ago” Ric replied. “Eight months!” Caroline yelled causing the other patrons to turn and stare at them. “sorry” Caroline said reassuring the onlookers “eights months!” she angrily whispered. “I was planning on waiting until Hope was older to give it to her, maybe I was planning to keep it hidden, he’s the bad guy Caroline! He killed Jenna and Tyler’s mom, and hundreds of other people. I didn’t want him to come back here and corrupt Hope or our girls, but” he explained, now turning towards Hope while Klaus was fuming in his seat “but I hate lying to you. And after everything that went on this past year I realized that you are already your own person, that you don’t need me to protect you from bad influences. Neither do my girls, you’re strong and independent, and stubborn as hell. And you all deserve at least the truth from me. I would’ve told you soon even if we didn’t need his help, the fact that we did was just the last straw. I’m sorry” The anger on Hopes face faded even if it didn’t fade significantly from Klaus’. “Well this has all been touching, but can we please get back to the plotting of revenge, because that’s really more my speed” Freya said refocusing the group on their common enemy and distracting them from their infighting. “Ah, yes because murder is always the perfect antidote to bickering” Keelin added eliciting a few stifled laughs from the group. They shortly agree to track down both the known mercenaries using Matt’s police connections and take them back to the Lockwood mansion for questioning to keep them out of the school, it’s mostly empty for the summer, but the kids with no where else to go have remained, and in a school like this that’s more than one or two. The rest of the meal is spent catching up and enjoying each other’s company, it’s decided that Klaus will stay at the school until this is all over to protect his daughter and they return for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning Caroline and Matt are in the library tracking down the mercenary using police software and known aliases when Klaus walks in. “Making any progress?” he inquired. “Not yet, the program is still running” Matt says before looking between Klaus and Caroline who still haven’t broken eye contact, he said “uh, I’m gonna go, get some coffee. Give you too a chance to catch up”. When Matt had left the room Klaus drawled “Alone at last” and grinned at her. She breathed out a laugh and looked away “Yeah we are….so where were you?” “Getting straight to the point I see” Klaus quipped. “Well you couldn’t have been at peace, or it would’ve been impossible to bring you back. There’s no more other side, so where?” Caroline asked sympathetically “It wasn’t bad” Klaus said noting the relief on Caroline’s face “It was some offshoot of the other side spell designed to trap me, but it was incomplete, poorly done, I was unable to feel the passage of time, it seemed only a few days, perhaps weeks. Just darkness and the occasional glimpse at Hope’s life. Blood reaching out to blood across the dimensions and all that” He answered casually, and honestly, noting that Caroline had looked a bit concerned when he’d said he saw glimpses of Hope’s life. “So, just Hope’s life then? No one else’s” Caroline asked “No, why?” Klaus replied with his eyebrow arched at her, almost immediately realizing that she was worried he had seen what was done to her at Augustine. “No reason, I just thought you might’ve seen Rebekah, or Freya, Kol maybe” she said too casually. “Caroline, ” Klaus began, voice dripping with concern “I have heard what’s happened to you in the time we’ve been apart. I’ve been told you aren’t particularly interested in vengeance, an entirely foreign concept to me, but nonetheless, you will have it. I promise you.” He said gently reaching out and placing his hands on her arms, so she’d look at him. “Thank you” she said softly “but all I want is to keep these kids safe. If I have to take down the whole society I’ll do it, but this is a rescue mission first, last and always. I don’t need to be avenged. Protected maybe, but not avenged”. “You will have my protection all the days of my life, Caroline, and I will do everything in my power to rescue Hope’s missing friend; but I can’t promise not to avenge you as well, it is after all what I do best” He said with a cocky smile causing her to laugh yet again despite the subject matter. At that moment Freya walks in holding a phone away from her ear with a pained expression as the woman on the other end screams bloody murder. “It’s for you” she says passing the phone to Klaus. “Hello” he says before repeating Freya’s earlier gesture causing both the women in the room to stifle their laughter as the phone blares with “Nik, what the bloody Hell could you have been thinking! You’ve been resurrected for 24 hours and I have to hear about it from someone else” Klaus smiles “Hello Rebekah”. Caroline goes to the kitchen to refill her coffee and give Klaus a moment with his sister. When she returns to the library with a coffee for Klaus as well he says “Well, apparently my sister and Marcel will be here tomorrow, she is quite happy to spend hours on a plane at a moments notice for the privilege of slapping me in face for not calling her immediately upon my return, thank you” he said accepting the coffee from a laughing Caroline who said, “The more the merrier, especially when they happen to have high-level superpowers, we can use all the help we can get. Unfortunately it’s a long flight from the Maldives so we’ll probably be doing this first part alone. Matt found one of the mercenaries”. “Ah, splendid, which one?” Klaus asked, hoping to be able to torture the one responsible for Caroline’s capture. “He was only able to find Richard, apparently his associate has gone to ground for whatever reason” Caroline answered. “Perfect, where is he?” Klaus asked attempting not to seem to eager. “Durham, North Carolina, let’s go” she said grabbing her keys. “You should stay here, let Freya and me handle this.” Klaus implored her. “Two vampires are better than one and I’m the one who knows him, it has to be me. I’ll be fine. Plus I’m the only one who actually has a car here” She said while jiggling her keys.


	5. Chapter 5

Later with Caroline driving and Klaus in the passenger seat, a tactless Freya asks from the back “So what was the purpose of their experiments?” “Freya don’t” Keelin pleads. “What? If we’re going to stop them we need to know what they’re after. You were still in the “observation phase” when you escaped, Caroline is the only one who has any specifics about the inner workings of their company, and she has yet to inform us.” Freya said realizing after how insensitive that sounded she amended “I know it must be difficult to talk about and this probably isn’t the best time, but we finally have a lead to work with and we need to know what we’re going up against.” “No, you’re right. What do you want to know?” Caroline said respectfully and reasonably, but still filled with dread at having to relieve it all and with Klaus next to her no less, he would probably go ballistic when he heard even the vague white washed gist of what had happened there, she wasn’t sure an enclosed space with no convenient people to murder was the best place for this story, nevertheless, it had to be done. “What were the experiments? Why would they be interested in supernatural creatures? Why would they want Keelin?” Freya listed from the backseat. “The organization was founded to research vampires for the betterment of humankind. They started by using vampire blood to cure people, then when they realized it could only be used for injuries and congenital defects rather than accept those limitations they realized that they could study the progression of diseases by infecting vampires with them. Furthermore they could study the ways in which vampires healed to inform their ability to heal humans.” Caroline answered “The experiments branched out from there to the study of the supernatural world, how to fight vampires, what hurt them, they heard about the effects of werewolf venom from one of the mercenaries and wanted to see for themselves how it worked, they had hoped to be able to create a synthetic form of it to weaponize. That’s why they were only holding Keelin, they were probably waiting for the full moon.” She explained further, checking that Keelin was alright in the rearview mirror. “Makes sense. So what experiments did they perform on the vampire test subjects?” Freya asked further. Klaus looked at Caroline with a mix of concern, a genuine desire to know more and a full wiliness to tell his sister to mind her own business if Caroline did not wish to answer her questions. “It was mostly surgical” she said gripping the steering wheel tightly “they removed every organ but the heart one at a time to determine how long they would take to grow back, I think they sold them, must be how they got all that money for security. Anyway they did further tests to see if the times would change based on the amount of blood in our systems, or vervain, the relative size or age of the vampire in question. They’d stop our hearts with a medicine or snap our necks to see how long it would take for us to come back, if the times shortened with repetition, things like that.” When Caroline finished her explanation the whole car was silent for about 30 seconds when it was interrupted by the sound of the coffee mug Klaus had been holding shattering in his grip followed by a crazed “I’m gonna kill them” from Klaus. “Klaus” Caroline said attempting to calm him. “I’m gonna kill all of them and everyone they’ve ever said hello to” He expanded. “Klaus” Caroline chided “That’s not the purpose of this, we’re trying to save Hope’s friend. Besides that list is endless; and saying hello is a basic part of a lot of people’s job description, you’ll just end up massacring a bunch of service people for doing their crappy jobs and they really don’t deserve that” she continued with her usually sunny disposition and charming innocence, Freya stifled a laugh from the backseat, Keelin didn’t bother, even Klaus managed a smile. “Turn left in 300 feet” the gps interrupted, and just like that they were arriving at Richards house. 

“So what’s the plan here? you guys can’t go in without being invited” Keelin remarked. “I can” Freya said recklessly getting out of the car and storming towards the door followed immediately by Klaus. “O…kay” Caroline said regretting that she hadn’t insisted on a plan before stopping the car and yet following anyway along with a rather hesitant Keelin. Freya knocked rather insistently and the door swung open with a confused and startled “Hello” from Richard that turned to shock and dread when he saw Caroline, he moved to slam the door, but with a flick of her finger Freya’s magic pulled him through the doorway at which point Klaus grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the brick of his house. “I assume this is the one we’re looking for luv?” Klaus asked Caroline. “uh yeah” Caroline said startled by the immediacy of the situation. “Excellent” Klaus asserted snapping his neck “this will be fun” Klaus picked him up in such a way that it would appear to the causal onlooker that Richard had simply had one too many and dragged him back to the car. He tossed him in the third row and asked Freya to bind his hands and feet with the vervain ropes they’d brought. At which point they all just got back in the car and started heading back to mystic falls, Caroline and Keelin just looked at each other like “Well that was anticlimactic” and proceeded with their plan. 

They arrived at the lockwood mansion after a few short, relatively quiet hours in the car with an unconscious vamp in the back. Klaus grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes carrying him inside and chaining him up by his feet. He disappeared for a moment and whooshed back in with a bucket, a knife and what looked like binder clips. “when did you get all this stuff together?” Caroline asked baffled “last night, I packed a bag of torture gear when you said we’d be hunting down a traitor” Klaus answered in an unsettlingly casual manor as the chained vamp came to. “Ah, perfect timing” Klaus said before putting the bucket under him, jamming the knife in his carotid artery and swiftly substituting it for the binder clip to keep the vein open. “well that was…efficient” Caroline said both impressed and mildly creeped out. “Not my first time luv” Klaus responded with a wink. She blushed in response and looked towards Freya as she walked in “Where’s Keelin?” “Waiting by the car, she didn’t want to see this” Freya said as she waved her hand and slashed Richard’s chest with her magic. “Whoa, Freya, we can just compel him, we don’t need to torture the information out of him” Caroline pleaded horrified “This isn’t necessary”. “I know” Freya smirked and continued “but it is deserved”. Caroline looked to Klaus, silently imploring him to stop her, but he didn’t. He agreed with her, this man had been personally responsible for Caroline’s imprisonment and subsequent torture and he wanted him to feel pain for that, he wanted to inflict it, but he knew Caroline remained kind despite everything, she wouldn’t want to see that and as such he said sympathetically “Why don’t you wait outside luv, we’ve got this handled”. Caroline looked back to what Freya was doing with and found herself nauseated, reminded of her time being sliced and diced by the augustines, she nodded briefly at Klaus and left the Lockwood mansion.


	6. Chapter 6

A number of hours later when Freya and Klaus walked outside to find Keelin waiting by the car Klaus asked her “where is Caroline?” Keelin replied “she walked home, she needed some space to clear her head, but she left the keys with me so I can drive you two back”. Klaus nodded and they returned to the Salvatore school for the young and gifted where they were greeted by Hope. “Did you find him? Did he know where Raf is being held?” “We did find him, I’m afraid he didn’t know much about what happens to supernatural beings who have been abducted, he had some information about the whereabouts of one of the main doctors and a couple of the members of the Augustine family. One lives in Louisiana and there is a branch in Louisiana so it could be assumed that there is also a branch in Washington as another grandson lives there, but the mercenary and his associate didn’t actually transport the vampires they laid traps and Augustine guards would pick them up so they never knew the exact locations of the facilities.” Klaus’ summarized. “Where is Caroline, I should tell her this as well?” “I thought she was with you” Hope said questioningly. “She was, she went home hours ago, she’s not back yet? Keelin asked. “No, I haven’t seen her” Landon interjected concerned. 

They tried calling her and she didn’t respond which prompted Klaus to go and look for her. He went to walk the path that she would have from the school back to the Lockwood mansion; Hope insisted on going with him, clearly very concerned for the safety of her teacher and friend, he worried about her going to the Lockwood mansion given that there was a chained vampire in there, but she was as insistent as you would think given her parentage and he found himself unable to deny her. “How did you get separated?” Hope asked as they walked the gravel path in the park that Caroline likely would have cut through according to Hope. “she was” Klaus hesitated “uncomfortable with watching what your aunt and I were doing, I told her to wait outside, I never meant for her to leave on her own”. He’d expected Hope to be horrified but she looked like she understood, that frightened him far more than he cared to admit. What had he missed? “How close are the two of you?” Hope asked. “What?” Klaus responded startled by the abrupt change of subject. “I mean, I know you two have a complicated history that goes back to before I was born, but you must really have trusted her to send me to her school given how protective you were you me” Hope said smiling. “I’m still protective of you, I’m you father, I always will be” Klaus interrupted, and Hope chuckled lightly and tilted her head in a nod of joking agreement. “What I mean is I knew you were close a long time ago, she told me, but you still seem to care a lot about her, you seem worried about her.” Hope pried. “I am worried about her; she’s been through quite the ordeal. And I will always care about her” Klaus stopped walking as a confused realization dawned on him and held out his hand to stop Hope “what do you mean she told you how close we were a long time ago?” “Well she didn’t say those words exactly, but I put it together. You see, you’re kind of famous in the vampire community. Especially when I was younger, people used to talk about Klaus Mikaelson all the time, they’d talk about massacres and rampages and how you’d gone mad. Every awful thing you’d ever done was not only gossiped about but documented in library books as history.” Hope explained sadly while Klaus’ face displayed guilt and shame “It all got to be too much sometimes, and I’d run off, find someplace to hide and cry. Caroline came and found me once and she told me that that wasn’t the whole story. That there were good things too and she would be happy to tell me about them.” Hope said almost wistfully, and Klaus’ body flooded with relief and gratitude, he asked smiling “what did she tell you?” Hope responded as she began walking again and Klaus resumed as well, “Well I was 8 so it was mostly stories where you were the hero for a change, all the times you saved her, from the town council and from ‘vampire who hunts vampires Alaric’. She told me you came all the way back from New Orleans to give Damon your blood even though you really didn’t like him and showed up in time to save her from witches that were trying to kill her at her graduation. She told me you were as kind to the people you cared about as you were cruel to those who hurt them. She told me you weren’t all bad, and, it helped.” Klaus had every intention of responding to Hope with something profound and thanking Caroline for telling her the good things when he found her, but then he smelled blood. He went off in the direction of it and Hope whooshed behind him as he squatted down to the ground to dip his finger in a small pool of blood. He looked to his left and saw tire tracks next to it as though someone had stopped to grab her and sped away. He looked over and saw the terrified look on Hope’s face, he regretted having to be the one to confirm her suspicions, but nevertheless he swore “I’ll get her back”.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next two chapters might be a bit hard to read, but there's a couple of really unconventional power plays by Caroline that I think really work for her character. Let me know what you think :)

Klaus and Hope arrive back at the school to inform the others of what they found. They burst in the door and Klaus announces to Freya, “someone’s taken Caroline. I need you to do a locater spell” “We can’t.” Hope responded sadly “ We’d need a blood relative; Caroline doesn’t have any left alive” Klaus turns away frustrated, he should have known that, he’s not thinking clearly. Freya grabs Klaus’ arm forcing him to look her in the eye “We’ll figure something out, we’ll find her”. “How do we know she’s even still alive” Hope asks in a panic. Keelin steps towards her and assures “Hey, hey, no she’s gonna be fine. She’s tough as nails. I mean, you wouldn’t believe everything she’s survived” Damon chimes in, a blend of snarky and reassuring “It’s true. Hell, I’ve tried to kill her several times myself and she just. will. not die. I mean, the woman’s practically indestructible, she’s like a damn cockroach, end of the world it’ll just be her and five radioactive beetles, okay, she’s alive I promise you”. Hope nods and chuckles through her tears “yeah, yeah, okay so how do we find her” “uhhh….” Freya utters, searching but unsure. “We hit the books” Alaric states decisively striding into the room “If blood magic isn’t an option we check other types, Hope you look in the student library, light magic tracking spells. I’ll call Bonnie and see if she knows anything that could help. Freya you can access the restricted section, black magic, voodoo, hoodoo, etcetera. I’ll show you the way”. They leave the room along with Keelin, Klaus follows Hope into the library. “Ignore that shelf, those spells won’t work on vampires, try over there, I’ll look over here” Hope instructed gesturing about the library, he can hear her heart pounding, she’s still panicking, not that he can blame her. They begin pouring over books, after nearly an hour they were still no closer to finding her, and Hope was no calmer. Klaus couldn’t help but notice that she was breathing shakily, and her hands were shaking enough to make flipping through the books difficult. She was muttering curses under her breath when Klaus reached out and took her hand in his “Hope, we will find her.” “It’s not working, I can’t find anything, I can’t…” Hope sobbed. “Hope..” Klaus repeated in an attempt at comfort. “No, no, you don’t understand” Hope sobbed jerking her hand back “There is nothing she hasn’t done for me, okay, nothing.” She ran her hand through her hair and shook her head “and it wasn’t because of some favoritism or pity or anything….she’s like that with all of us. She’s…the heart of this place. It’s my home and it’s my friends’ home, and it won’t be the same without her. I love her…..and I can’t save her” Hope finished, her voice breaking. Klaus moved to hug her while she cried, unable to stop it, he would have to settle for providing whatever comfort he could.

Disrupting the gravity of the current situation Rebekah and Marcel arrived at the school. “What the Hell are you doing here?” Damon asked the blonde original at the door. “My brother is back, thank you very much” She responded entering the school and searching it “Nik! Nik!” Klaus whooshed to her side smile not quite reaching his eyes “Rebekah” he said and hugged her looking over her shoulder to Marcel. “What’s wrong?” Marcel asked both concerned and just tired. “My little sister’s missing, so we could maybe put the reunion hugs on hold for, ya know, ever” Damon interjected in his usual snarky tone while walking towards Alaric. “Since when do you have a sister?” Rebekah asked in a catty manner. “Caroline married my brother, that made her my sister in law, she’s a couple hundred years younger than me so boom, baby sister. And my brother died saving my ass so looking after his widow is kind of the least I could do. So. Where are we?” Damon asked. Freya and Klaus looked at each other and shook their heads sadly. “We’re nowhere” Hope croaked, her small voice and tear-stained face betraying the seriousness of the moment. “Oh sweetheart” Rebekah said moving to hug her niece. “We’re not having any luck with locater spells, so we’ll move on to more modern means. Traffic cameras. I’ll call Matt.” Alaric said. Damon’s phone begins to ring, he pulls it out of his pocket and looks at it, he typically wouldn’t answer an unknown number, but he thought it might be related, a ransom call, maybe. “Hello” Damon answered sounding slightly annoyed and then relief washed over his face and he relaxed his posture “Caroline. Thank God. Where are you?” The relief spreading to everyone in the room. “I’m on my way” Damon said unceremoniously darting out of the house. “Wait where are you going, where is she?!” Hope demanded following Damon, along with Klaus. “Well I’ll be damned if I’ve flown all this way just to be left behind” Rebekah snapped storming after them with Marcell following closely behind.


	8. Chapter 8

Damon’s car pulled into the parking lot of a diner on the outskirts of a city about an hour away. With Klaus not far behind. Damon got out and started running in and was met in the parking lot by a woman in a black hoodie, presumably Caroline. Klaus’ car stopped and they got out in time to see Caroline pull back her hood and reveal a badly bruised face. He stopped in his tracks, it shouldn’t have been possible, she was a vampire, she’d heal immediately from anything. She hugged Damon laughing in response to something he’d said. She saw him, and the others and looked concerned. “Hope” she said pulling back with worry in her voice “What are you doing h-“ She was cut off by a particularly forceful hug as aunt Rebekah smiled on. As they released each other Rebekah chimed in “Now then, what on earth happened to your face and why isn’t it healing?” “Oh,” Caroline responded like she’d forgotten the state she was in “that, yeah, the Augustines developed a serum that slows down supernatural healing. It’s still faster than human, but slow enough to make you feel your injuries when trying to escape. It was originally developed so the accelerated healing would be slowed down enough to study at the microscopic level to see if they could use it to learn how to speed healing in humans. Like most of their research they’ve since weaponized it.” Klaus, who had remained frozen up to this point with a horrified look on his face, finally stepped toward Caroline gently taking her arm and leaning in “Come along love, it isn’t safe out here, I’ll take you home” “um, pretty sure she called me” Damon quipped. Klaus stepped toward Damon and Caroline put her hand on his chest top stop him. She looked at Damon and said “No, it’s okay, I’ll meet you back at the school.” Damon glared at Klaus who looked smug as all hell and breathed “fine.” Damon headed back towards his car and everyone else piled into Klaus’. 

The small caravan arrives back at the school and walks inside to find a worried waiting party. The girls run up to hug their mother as soon as she steps in the door “hi babies” Caroline greets with a twin in each arm. They pull back “oh my God. Mom, what happened to you!?!?!” Lizzie demanded. “Uh, that is a long story for another time…like when you’re 35, but I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine.” Caroline answered. “Well thank God for that” Alaric said walking over to hug her, she stood on her tip toes to reciprocate by wrapping her arms around his neck and her hoodie rode up revealing cuts all over her back. Thankfully neither Hope nor the girls saw, but Klaus and his siblings did and proceeded to exchange horrified looks. “You girls should get to bed it’s 3 am, you’re already up way too late, and there’s nothing for you to do right now. We’ll make a plan and talk in the morning okay” Caroline told all three girls. “What? No, I can help” Hope refuted “Listen to Caroline” Klaus told Hope “it’s been a very long day, you’re exhausted, we’ll pick this up in the morning”. The girls reluctantly obeyed and allowed the adults to speak freely about the sensitive subject matter, which immediately led to the bourbon being broken into because, well Damon and Alaric were there.

Caroline took a drink which she nearly spit out after being startled by Rebekah’s statement of “So what’s with the marks on you back? They look like they’re part of some kind of pattern”. “What marks?” Alaric asks, Caroline sighed took off the hoodie and turned around. Her shirt had been cut open in back and what looked like wings had been carved into her. “It’s part of the mercenaries whole thing” Caroline said turning back around to face everyone and gesticulating dismissively “Richard, the one we grabbed earlier and his friend, the one who took me are part of a group that believes that vampires are demons, but also believes that demons, like the devil himself are fallen angels. They think that they can find redemption by turning on their own to protect mankind.” “Hence the creeptastic tattoo, great” Damon interjects sarcastically before taking another swig of bourbon. “Right. Richard and I met in Spain after Valerie called me there last year to recruit some young syphonite witches. Their coven shuns and isolates syphons as soon as their powers are discovered, since every other member is a witch they can syphon magic from anybody and as a result they aren’t allowed to touch anyone for their entire lives. It’s a recipe for making sociopaths like Kai. Valerie was desperate to get them somewhere they could thrive, but they were too young to join her coven. It’s all heretics, they’re all adults and none of them have children, they’d still be isolated, just a different kind of isolation, but this school would have been perfect for them. Richard was something of a mediator between us and the coven elders. He claimed that he could sympathize with the kids because he’d been a witch before he was turned and his own coven shunned him for a demon, what he neglected to mention was that he agreed with them. The coven knew what he was and who he worked for and they called him in to trap us because we vampires dared to meddle in witch business. He and his friend vervained me and Valerie and we woke up in a shipping container bound for Louisiana. I guess they’re both based in North Carolina, and when we grabbed Richard his friend followed us.” “Why would he grab you instead of trying to save his friend” Alaric asked. “I guess he knew he was outmatched, or maybe I was too big a target to let go of because I escaped Augustine, I really don’t know” Caroline answered.

“Wait, how did you even manage to escape this psychopath? I’m guessing from the marks on your wrists you were tied with Vervain ropes and you look like you lost a lot of blood, how did you manage to kill him” Marcel asked. “I didn’t, he has a good 300 years on me. I was hanging by my wrists, and the knots were held in place by the traction, but he took a call and forgot that he’d left the chair he’d been sitting in. I was able to stand on it, free myself, make a run for it and steal a car. And a hoodie, and 8 bucks” Caroline answered pulling some wadded-up cash out of the pocket of the hoodie she’d put back on. “that’s 2 bucks” Damon corrected. “curly fries at the diner” Caroline responded too casually. “ah” Damon commented sipping his drink. “He just forgot the chair” Rebakah chimed in. “He probably wasn’t too worried about me trying to run since I had enough vervain in my system to drop an elephant, but I’ve built up quite the tolerance” Caroline said finishing her drink. “But how did he not notice that you were awake despite the vervain given all that…carving?” Rebekah asked disgusted. Pouring more bourbon Caroline responded, “I played dead” she shrugged and added “and they said majoring in acting wouldn’t payoff”. Rebekah scoffed a laugh unsure whether to be impressed or disturbed. “Oh, your dad’s ‘power of the mind’ thing. Yeah he used it to resist vampire compulsion without vervain, you adapted it for insensitivity to pain.” Keelin remembered and looked to the others explaining “She used to use it at Augustine. To keep the pain from being too distracting, so she could talk to the doctors and the guards. Get information. Create the illusion that it was okay. Make friends, even. It’s how we escaped.” “Don’t. please.” Caroline pleaded looking ashamed for her duplicity despite its necessity. “huh, weaponized resiliency, only you” Damon chuckled and raised his glass in a quasi-toast to the hunter’s resourcefulness. “So what does papa Forbes have for dealing with the fact that psyco carving guy was probably calling the Augustines to tell them we’re in Mystic Falls?” Caroline smirked and said walking over to her desk “Actually, this one’s all me” she pulled out a notepad and a burner phone and further explained. “I’m not the strongest, or the fastest, or even the smartest, but you know what I do have that no one else does? I’m the best at research”. This elicited some very puzzled looks from the entire group. Caroline dialed the phone and picked up the notebook “Hi, is this Andrew Myers? You became a vampire hunter to get revenge on Alistair DuGrey after he murdered your wife and daughter in 1989, is that correct? How would you like his home address?” Caroline took another sip of bourbon with a self-satisfied look on her face. “Excellent, I am sending you the address now, I’ll need you to respond with proof of death by 6pm that won’t be a problem will it? Pleasure doing business with you.” 

She hung up the phone and Keelin asked “wait, Alistair, wasn’t that one of the guards at Augustine?” Klaus smiled with pride and asked, “How many calls like that do you have to make?” “73, Augustine has 100 Vampire guards at any given time in addition to their human guards. I put together this list when I first got out in case they came after me and I needed to run, I figured I’d cut them off at the knees and give myself a head start. It won’t stop them from coming after us now that they know where we are, but it will slow them down and give us time to come up with something. When Eric called them it was to set up a time to hand me off to a transport team, they said they couldn’t get here until 6pm, so we should have until then before anyone even comes to Mystic Falls, let alone the school, since they don’t know exactly where it is.” Caroline paused. 

“I’ll call Valerie for backup, maybe her coven can get here in time.” Alaric said walking out and dialing the phone. “Wait, if you had this information why didn’t we go after the guards earlier?” Freya barked angrily. “If we had started grabbing guards the Augustines would’ve locked down their facilities even further and brought in their witches to layer on cloaking spells, and we never would have found them. It would have tipped them off that we were going after them and any guard we had taken would’ve only known the location of the facility where they worked. It was too big a risk for a one in seven chance of finding Rafiel. Especially considering that the guards barely know anything even about their own facility, the prisoners are assigned numbers, the guards don’t know their names or anything about the experiments or anything we could use really.” Caroline sighed “I thought the mercenaries were a better place to start because they’re contractors, I thought we could fly under the radar. I was wrong, but I’m gonna make it right.” “You don’t have anything to apologize for love, it was a good plan poorly executed, we should have checked to make sure he was there alone.” Klaus interjected waving his hands about, the frustration of the night clear in his mannerisms. “No matter, what we need now is to make a plan for the defense of the school and a full-scale attack on the entirety of the Augustine organization. Caroline, make your calls, decimate their defenses, leave them vulnerable; Freya, start doing spells, boundary spells, defensive magic, be creative, and take Keelin with you for protection; Rebekah call Kol and Davina and see if they can come here, we could always use another original; Alaric is gathering Valerie and the heretic coven, best have him wrangle the Bennet witch as well, she has proved quite useful before; Marcel, you’re with me.” “What are you gonna do?” Caroline asked. “I’m going to do what I do best” Klaus drawled “You said you left the man who did this to you alive, where might he be now?” “No, Klaus, we need you here. Besides there’s nothing else he can do tonight-“ Klaus interrupted “Unless he hasn’t informed the Augustines of your escape yet in the hopes that he could apprehend you before the handoff, keep from losing face with his employers, in which case my killing him in a manner so spectacular it is spoken of in hushed reverent tones for centuries will be strategically sound as well as deeply enjoyable.” Caroline fought a smile and responded “Fair point. West and elm about 10 miles away from the diner. My blood’s all over the apartment, you can’t miss it.” Kluas nodded and headed out followed by Marcel and everyone set about their respective tasks.


	9. Chapter 9

Klaus and Marcel had been driving for twenty minutes when Marcel finally asked “so, are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and Caroline?” “I don’t catch your meaning. She’s my daughter’s headmistress, we’ve been familiars for many years. Since I was in mystic falls to break my curse. A friend of the doppelganger” “Familiars? That’s what you call it.” Marcel doubted “because you’ve got your most murderous face on since she got hurt. Now that one’s normally reserved for your family, people you consider under your protection. Seems like maybe she’s a little more important to you than you’re letting on.” Klaus opened his mouth to speak and promptly closed it, deciding on a simpler response than is the actual complicated truth. “She…is…important. To me. We’re here.” Both men get out of the car and follow the scent of blood to the third floor, wordless and utilizing vamp hearing to listen in on 3B “how far could she possibly have gotten, she was half dead and drugged as all Hell” Klaus sped through the door and slammed the man into a brick wall so hard it left an indent. Marcel strolled in casually and picked up the cell phone dropped on the floor “He’s gonna have to call you back”. He hung up the phone and pointed to Eric “If I were you, I would tell him what he wants to know and beg him to kill you quickly.” “I certainly can’t promise that” Klaus hissed as the veins around his eyes darkened. “What have you told the augustines about Caroline?” Eric looked genuinely confused “Who? I don’t even know who you’re talking about, let me go!” Klaus proceeded to plunge his hand into his chest and squeeze his heart and repeated insistently “Caroline! What have you told the Augustines about Caroline” “Wait” Marcel interjected holding his hand out “Caroline said that the guards wouldn’t know the prisoner’s names because they were assigned numbers, maybe it’s the same with this guy. The blonde woman you abducted and tortured earlier, you were going to hand her over to the Augustines at 6 and she got away. Did you tell them that she escaped or were you trying to find her yourself before they got here?” Realization dawned on the dying man’s face and he admitted “I sent my own men to find 81357. They don’t know any specifics about who she is, where I found her, or how to contact Augustine. Please. Please, don’t kill me” Klaus looked so unbelievably and personally offended that he would have hurt Caroline so badly without even knowing her name that Marcel knew his punishment would be severe. Then he had one of his more brilliantly sadistic ideas and smirked “Oh I’m not going to kill you.” He looked the man in the eyes and began his compulsion. “Tell the truth, was everything you said earlier the entirety of the truth” “Yes” he answered “Good. Then inject yourself with the same serum you injected Caroline with and inflict every injury upon yourself that you ever inflicted upon her and every injury you ever saw inflicted upon her while doing nothing to stop it….and then promptly set yourself on fire and allow yourself to burn to death. All the while knowing the world will be the better for it because you. are. a demon. Who deserves to die horribly” Klaus released the man to his fate, and he picked up a syringe. Marcel nodded and followed Klaus back to the car. “Damn. I mean damn, that was impressive even for you.” “I aim to please” Klaus said smugly. They drove back to the school. 

When Klaus and Marcel arrived back at the school it was about 8am and the school was waking up deceptively normally all things considered. They smelled breakfast cooking and went into the kitchen, there were not many children still in attendance, it was summer so the only ones remaining were the ones with nowhere else to go. Caroline was showered and clean despite her extensive injuries, making pancakes and laughing with the kids. Hope saw Klaus before anyone else did given his confused expression she went over to him. “What is going on here?” He asked. “Yeah. It’s sort of our thing, in the summer there’s not a lot of people left, just the Saltzman girls, the scholarship kids, and me. Since most of the staff is gone too we all prepare meals together, and eat together, it’s actually kinda nice. And even when everything else goes wrong, people gotta eat. Well vampires don’t but were not all immortals” Hope explained. Klaus smiled “Scholarship kids?” he asked. “Yeah, apparently Caroline got some big endowment when the school first opened and her and Alaric used it to get up a scholarship for orphaned or abandoned supernatural kids. There’s Anna she’s a wolf, parents killed in a war between packs. John lost his family when he became a vampire because before he learned control he hurt his sister; his parents couldn’t even look at him after. Henry’s a wolf too, but he shouldn’t have been, his parents were witches so when he turned his dad found out he wasn’t really his dad and killed his mom. That’s a rough one, especially since he’s so young, even to have just triggered his curse, but like this, it’s…Anyway, it’s a really good thing we have the scholarship here.” Klaus felt the weight of these kid’s stories. Knowing that it was his funding that provided for them was quite fulfilling, but the overwhelming feeling was gratitude to Caroline for making his gift matter so much more than he ever could have intended. He smiled and turned back to Hope, he had been looking past her to Caroline, “That’s all quite lovely, but we really don’t have the time to carry on as normal, we need to be focusing on defense.” “Everyone has been working on what you told them to do since you left, the girls and I are going to add an early warning system to let us know if anyone is trying to cross the boundary spell aunt Freya put up, we were just gonna eat first, because, we’re ya know, mortal and need to consume food to live.” Klaus laughed “Alright, just let me speak with Caroline for a moment.” Hope responded looking concerned “Yeah, just. See if you can get her to try to sleep, she’s been up all night and she needs to rest to heal up.” He nodded, sharing her concern, before walking over to her just as she was finishing up the prep work. “Caroline can I speak with you for a moment. Privately” He asked lightly reaching out for her arm. “Yeah.” She responded leading him into the other room and lighting some sage so that they would not be overheard. “What’s up?” “I just wanted to update you on the status of our collective war effort, as one is wont to do when mid-battle, though I do like your approach of preparing a heavy breakfast for our attackers, so they are too tired to fight back. It’s very unconventional” Klaus teased lightheartedly. “Very funny Klaus, they’re kids, they have to eat. Besides the “war effort” as you call it is moving right along. 71 confirmed kills without lifting a finger thank you very much.” Caroline retorted jokingly “And Freya’s boundary spell is the strongest I’ve ever seen and expertly crafted so that we can still come and go as we please, we won’t end up trapped if we have to run” Klaus stepped closer to her and very delicately put a hand on each of her arms to make her look him in the eye “We will not have to run” He vowed “Eric is dead, and I was right, he hadn’t informed the Augustines of your escape or your location prior to your capture. They won’t being looking for you for another 10 hours and even then they’ll be looking an hour away from here. We can go on the offensive here, which does happen to be my strong suit. It will all be fine. Everyone here will be fine, I swear it.” Caroline’s face washed over with relief “Thank you” She said simply. He brushed her hair out of her face and said “You should rest, you have the time now and you’ll need to be at your full strength later” She smiled back at him and replied “I’m fine, I need to be with the kids, make sure they know what’s going on, that they’re prepared, but not afraid. Because we’ll all be fine right? Come on” She led him back into the kitchen to have breakfast with his daughter.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, nothing for weeks then two in one day. In fairness though this one is pure fluff.

Everyone is enjoying a nice breakfast when Hope whispers to Klaus “I see you failed too” gesturing to Caroline in reference to neither of them being able to get her to rest. “She says she’s fine, but there’s nothing for her to do now….I hate seeing her like this” Klaus admitted to Hope. “I have an idea, catch her” Hope said while following the crowd to put her plate in the sink. She hung back a bit and as the hall began to clear of children running off to play. “Somnum” Hope said with a wave of her hand and Caroline collapsed. Klaus scooped her up in his arms before she hit the ground. “Was that really necessary?” Alaric asked. “She won’t let doctor Flox anywhere near her, she won’t even go to sleep and if she doesn’t then it’ll take twice as long for the serum to make it’s way out of her system. Seemed pretty damn necessary to me. Dad, can you put her in her room, it’s at the top of the stairs third on the right.” Klaus whooshed her away keeping an ear out for the bickering between Alaric, Hope and the girls. He put her in her bed, sleeping soundly, and proceeded to Hope’s room where he’d just heard the door slam. “I take it Alaric is rather angry” Klaus stated. “ha well then it’s a typical Tuesday. He’s got some pretty strict rules about using magic on people without their consent, that I normally agree with, but desperate times.” Hope deadpanned. Klaus nodded looking around Hope’s room “you know I don’t think you’ve ever actually been here, my room I mean, not mystic falls. It’s the same one I’ve had since I was eight actually.” “You don’t say. Well, I see you’ve settled in quite nicely.” Klaus responded moving over to the corner with her art supplies and looking through the many canvases on the floor. Mostly landscapes, and pictures of family. A couple of Landon and her friends from school, and one rather unique one of Caroline. He picked that one up and set it on the easel. “oh yeah, I always liked that one” Hope said with a smile. “Yes, I always liked painting her as well. Is she asleep on the floor?” Klaus asked. “Yeah, there’s a story behind that. Actually that’s probably why it’s one of my favorites.” Hope responded. “Well I’m intrigued, do go on.” Klaus said playfully. “It was a few months after you died. I was having a really hard time with it, with you and with mom. I couldn’t really sleep. I had a lot of nightmares for a while. Anyway Caroline could hear me talking in my sleep and she’d come in here to wake me up, but I was dead set on pushing everyone away. I thought it’d be safer for them. I don’t know, maybe just easier for me. So when she woke me up I would just scream at her. I mean I was really horrible. I said some things, I can’t even believe I said. But Caroline is the most stubborn person in the world. And I’m including you and me in that assessment so it’s really saying something.” Hope laughed. “And one night, a really bad night, after I had screamed at her to ‘get the hell out of my room’ I still couldn’t get back to sleep and after a while I went to go get some water, but when I opened my door I nearly stepped on Caroline’s head. She had gotten a pillow and blanket and gone to sleep outside my bedroom door like a Labrador.” Hope chuckled at this, but Klaus just looked confused and slightly worried. “You see it was a grand gesture. She woke up when I opened the door and I asked what she was still doing there after I yelled at her to leave and she said that it was important for me to know that there were people that I couldn’t push away no matter what. But she’d take it as a kindness if I would stop trying so hard.” Klaus grinned at that “That sounds like her” “yeah, she’s good like that” Hope agreed. “Dad what are we going to do? How do we protect her from something this big? It’s not magic or monsters, it’s just people. Horrible, well organized, people.” “I will protect her, and you from anyone or anything. I will handle this, you, paint some happier memories hmm?” Klaus said walking out of the room to go watch over Caroline and plot the Augustine's demise.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short set up chapter for the next phase of the story which takes place in NOLA

Caroline woke up many hours later to see Klaus in a chair by her bedside looking at her adoringly, yet with a tinge of something sinister. It didn’t take her long to realize he was working on some sort of plot to do away with the Augustines once and for all. She couldn’t help but smile up at him, he was cute when he was plotting murder and when he was being overprotective, the combo was downright adorable. He smiled back and said, “It looks like your wounds have mostly healed” “Yeah, how long have I been asleep?” “Most of the day, don’t be angry with Hope luv, she was just worried about you” “Yeah, I know, she’s such a sweet kid. Ridiculously overprotective, but….” “I haven’t a clue where she gets that from” Klaus joked. Alaric interrupted their lovely moment by walking in and saying “Oh good, you’re up, people are getting a little restless wondering what we’re gonna do about the Augustines. Did you have a plan or are we coming up with one?” “So you’ve come to disturb her while she’s recuperating because you can’t come up with a plan for the defense of the school on your own?” Klaus retorted. “Stop. It’s a fair question, no I don’t have a plan yet, but we need to come up with one pronto because if they haven’t attacked yet we might still be able to catch them off guard. I’ll meet you in the library in 10” Caroline responded. 

Alaric left the room and Caroline rolled her head over dramatically to give Klaus some serious side eye “So, are you gonna tell me what you’ve been plotting this whole time?” Caroline asked. Klaus wasn’t exactly sure how she knew he’d been plotting, but he had to admit he did enjoy how well she knew him. “I’d prefer to save the big reveal for a larger audience” Klaus smirked. Caroline rolled her eyes and promptly got out of bed.

Caroline and Klaus entered the library to find Freya, Keelin, Alaric, Damon, Rebekah, Marcel, Hope and Landon looking over Caroline’s piles of research and a map of the U.S. “So there are seven grandsons and seven locations, young Rafiel could be at any one of them and we need to destroy them all to eliminate the threat to the school. The reason we have been unable to narrow down the exact locations is that they are well cloaked by the witches that serve the Augustines, the problem being that no one actually knows who these witches are. So either we need to find an exact location and syphon the cloaking spell or we need to discover the identity of the witches and provide sufficient pressure such that they remove the spells themselves. The best way to learn either would be to infiltrate the organization. You said one grandson lives in Louisiana which is also where you were held correct?” Klaus announced. “Well yeah, but how could we possibly infiltrate the organization they know me and Keelin and Valerie. They probably know Freya too. How would we even do that…” Caroline answered. “Well with all their vampire security killed they would be hiring” Damon quipped. “My thoughts exactly” Klaus agreed walking over to the stack of papers related to Joseph Augustine. “This Joseph chap, he lives in New Orleans, Keelin and Rafiel were taken from the bayou, the Louisiana branch can’t be too far from our own backyard” “I spent months looking all over New Orleans and you’re telling me it was right under my nose the whole time.” Freya asked through gritted teeth. “There, but well hidden. It however won’t stay that way. I’ll get close to Joseph, discover the location of the damnable place, we’ll have Valerie syphon the spell that cloaks it, then we can kill them all…And save the prisoners, hopefully including Rafiel.” Klaus assured. “Okay, when do we leave?” Caroline asked. “You don’t. Luv. You’ll stay right here with your girls and with Hope” Klaus insisted. “Yeah, that’s not happening” Hope interjected “I’m going to New Orleans to get Raf” “Yeah me too” Landon added. “No you’re not” Caroline and Klaus yelled at the same time. “Your father and I are going to New Orleans. Valerie will meet us there. Freya and Keelin will stay to protect the school and look after you because they’re way too well known in New Orleans for a weird, covert, mission, thing. And Ric will stay to look after my girls” “Kol and Davina are already on their way here so they can help to protect the school. An original will help if they manage to breach the boundary.” “It’ll also come in handy when we storm Augustine, Marcel and I are going with you” Rebekah added. “Very well, no time to waste then” Klaus said walking towards the door.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, sorry for the delay in posting! This story is not abandoned, I just (unfortunately) have adult responsibilities. There is a bit of filler in this one, but it sets up the rest of the story and we are definitely getting closer to the real romance. Please enjoy and leave a comment with feedback based on this or any other chapter.

Klaus was driving with Caroline soundly sleeping in the passenger seat on the way to New Orleans when Klaus’ near constant loving glance over to his passenger were interrupted by Marcel’s playful mocking “I know we can’t actually die, but you should still keep your eyes on the road” “If you’d been keeping your eyes on the road, or more properly the road signs, you’d have seen that we are almost home”  
They entered the compound which had been occupied by Freya and Keelin for the past few years. “oh well I must say I love what they’ve done with the place” Rebekah remarked looking around. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was mostly Keelin.” Caroline said with a laugh putting her duffel bag down in the corner “So what’s the plan? I figure the best way to keep them away from the school is to let them know I left, where should I go to get noticed.” “You’ll do nothing of the kind” Klaus barked. “Of course I will” Caroline said with a confused yet defiant expression “it’s the best way to keep them away from the school and you know it. Besides, you need them to notice you too unless you think they’re gonna put a ‘vampire help wanted’ sign in the window so you can submit a job application” Klaus chuckled dryly “Yes, well if they see me gallivanting about the city with their most wanted fugitive they’ll surely hire me as their new CEO” Klaus quipped. Caroline rolled her eyes and laughed lightly “Yeah, but if they see you fighting with their most wanted fugitive they might proposition you to help them deal with me.” Klaus balked at the very notion of it. “You can’t be serious” he said horrified. “Actually that’s not a bad idea” Marcel interjected “The enemy of the enemy is my friend and all you could make yourself look like one hell of an ally. We’d just need to find a believable way for her to get away, I mean it’s not like you can actually kill her -” “Stop this! I won’t hear of it. We will find another way, a better way.” Klaus shouted walking towards the drink cart in the other room. “Hang on, let me talk to him” Caroline said to Marcel and Rebekah following after Klaus.

Caroline walked in and stood in the doorway eyeing Klaus with arms folded but not saying anything. Feeling her staring him down Klaus conceded and told her the truth behind his earlier outburst. “I won’t do it……For it to be convincing, I would have to hurt you. I won’t do that.” He said without looking at her before finishing with puppy dog eyes. She uncrossed her arms and walked towards him. “Okay so what’s the plan” she said softly. “I can’t just hide here I have to misdirect them away from the school” “I know, I know” Klaus conceded “Surely if they have looked into the history of mystic falls they would be aware of our history. Perhaps we could make a show of you coming to me for help dealing with the Augustines and my turning you away on the grounds that I’m in support of their mission” “Okay….but how on earth would you sell that? There’s no way you would support an organization that tortures vampires, and wolves for that matter, for the benefit of humans.” “In point of fact you are one of the very few people left in this world that does not think me cruel. I could spin a tale about the convenience of having an organization devoted to torturing my enemies for me, perhaps add something in about refusing to help you on the grounds that you’d rejected my advances, something like that” “Klaus…” Caroline interjected wanting to refute the claim that she’d rejected him, she had of course, but she never meant for that to be permanent. His death simply disrupted her long-term plan. Klaus put his hand up “No, luv, it’s merely part of the story” He leaned it and whispered in her ear “You know quite well I’m not so easily dissuaded as that” She laughed, and he responded in kind. As their laughter died down their eyes met and they both had to fight the instinct to lean into the other, until they didn’t. Before their lips met however Rebekah interrupted by walking in with very loud high heeled footfalls and a blunt “Do we have a plan yet then?”


	13. Chapter 13

They staged the scene at Rousseau's and waited for word to get around. Marcel was still well connected in New Orleans even after all this time and made a point to meet up with some buddies to see if the gossip had spread around. As anticipated rumors of Mikaelson drama spread faster among the supernatural community than they would have in a high school. Though Caroline mused perhaps not as fast as in a boarding school. Within a day someone had contacted Klaus about Augustine's current dilemma. They had proposed, an arrangement. They would serve as Klaus' personal prison and torture chamber for Klaus' enemies and never harm his friends, they would even focus some of their efforts on research that could be useful to him; on the condition that he help dispose of the threat to their safety. The girl who knew too much. Miss Caroline Forbes. 

He'd agreed to consider the arrangement, not wanting to appear too eager. Given his reputation that would have been suspicious. As part of the consideration he was invited to tour their facility. They were going to pick him up in ten minutes and he was getting ready to head out the door when Caroline knocked on his open door. He smiled at her and said "Come in luv" he'd enjoyed having her in his home these past couple days. "Are you sure it's a good idea for you to go alone?" Caroline asked obviously worried for his safety while handing him the jacket he'd left draped over the chair back. "It could only possibly be dangerous for them, in case you've forgotten luv, I cannot be killed" he responded with a cocky grin. Caroline scoffed "No but you can be hurt, are you sure you don't want some backup?" Klaus was touched by her concern and reassured her by placing his hands on her arms, looking her in the eyes and stating firmly yet gently "It will be fine. They suspect nothing as of yet and if I find Rafiel I will simply return and we will plan a coordinated attack". Caroline looked like she was about to say something but Marcel came in and said "They're here". Klaus dropped his hands, nodded at Caroline and left to meet his prospective colleague. 

As he walked toward the car the window was rolled down and he was greeted with "Hello Klaus". Klaus recognized the face from Caroline's research. Joseph Augustine in the flesh. They must really be trying to impress him, too bad all he was currently feeling was murderous intent. He was however, always the actor and pasted on a false smile "Joseph, how gracious of you to give me the tour yourself." He got in the car and they headed off to the facility. Upon entrance the tour began in earnest, it began with the lab. A demonstration of an experiment on a vampire, "This is one of our best scientists, Dr. Milton. He's currently researching cornea regeneration. We're studying the process of regeneration in vampires to determine if a similar process can be manufactured and adapted to use on humans." He calmly explained over the screams of the woman strapped naked to the table with her eyes being cut out. Klaus gave a fake smile while holding down bile at the thought that this was Caroline a few months ago and said "Lovely. Now where do you keep the lab rats when you aren't using them". "Oh, I can assure you the accommodations are sufficiently unpleasant to serve as a threat to those you would wish to intimidate. Right this way" Joseph said leading his towards the cells. They passed through a long hallway of cement walls and iron bars. No beds even just vampires sleeping on the floor looking half starved. When they got to the end of the hall he said "And, this is where we keep the wolves. They're harder to find and harder to contain around the full moon, but they have been fascinating. We haven't been able to do such extensive experimentation on them as the vampires as they aren't quite so resilient....or unfortunately disposable. We've moved from observation to mild probing in the last few weeks and it does appear that their healing powers are slightly different from that of vampires. It might be just what we've been needing for our research on regeneration organs". It was at that moment that Klaus realized how easily Keelin could've been killed by scientist not knowing where to stop on a creature they didn't understand. He should kill them all, lock them in and burn the place down, but he'd made a promise. He'd also just seem Rafiel, time to get out of here. "Yes, this is all rather impressive. I will be taking it under consideration. Now, if you'll forgive me I do have a prior engagement that I'm running late for." "Of course, I'll have my driver take you back." he said with a waved of the hand towards a man in a dark suit "But, do consider quickly. Our problem is....time-sensitive". Every instinct in Klaus' body was screaming at him to kill him where he stood for referring to Caroline as a problem to be solved. But, again, he'd made a promise and he intended to keep it. "Of course he nodded, shook the mans hand and headed back to the car, discretely pulling out his phone and dropping a pin to Marcel as anything magical would have alerted them to something amiss.

He returned to the compound to find Caroline eagerly waiting for him in the foyer. She got up and ran over at the sight of him "How'd it go?" He paused, looked down and then back in her eyes and responded "We should call Freya". Caroline's eyes lit up and she breathed "you found him??". He tiled his head to the side and made a motion with his hands like he was weighing what to say in response and was cut short by her launching into his arms and breathing out a sigh of relief "you found him". He smiled and placed his hands on her back. "Yes, love I found him. Let's go call the school and get reinforcements". They gathered Marcel and Rebekah and called Freya at the school "Rafiel is being held in New Orleans. Is Valerie back in the states?" "What? You've found Raf, you've found the facility?.....oh I'm going to burn that place to ash" Freya said murderously. Klaus rolled his eyes and responded "Yes, but don't tell Hope. I don't want her rushing down here into danger, we're planning out the attack. We have three originals, with Valerie we'll have a heretic -" "And a vampire who knows the place." Caroline interrupted, meaning herself. A comment which earned a stern look from Klaus who had no intention of letting her in there. She shook her head and continued "We could use another witch, this is a rescue mission and we need to make sure the prisoners get out unharmed. It'll take more finese than brute force, but we need to leave enough adults at the school to protect it in case another branch attacks" "I'm on my way" Freya rushed "Valerie is already on a plane, she lands in New Orleans in a couple hours, I'll be there early tomorrow morning". "Okay, sounds like a plan, we'll see you then" Caroline said with a smile. They hung up and she sighed with relief "we're gonna get them back".


	14. The night before

All that was left to do was wait, they'd all decided to get a good night's sleep before the big fight. Marcel and Rebkah had gone to bed hours ago and had actually managed to get to sleep. Klaus on the other hand was painting. As he always did when he felt restless, it helped him think, or more accurately plot. It also helped to calm his rage, which had been overwhelming since his visit to the laboratory. He had been angry since learning that she had been taken, but the more overwhelming feeling was shame. Guilt about not having been there to protect her, and shame over not having been able to keep her safe. It made no sense of course, he couldn't possibly have been expected to protect her from beyond the grave, but he'd though of himself as the most powerful being on earth for a millennium. He liked to think he could protect anyone from anything and since he'd never expected to die, he'd never expected that to get in the way. But it did, and now that he'd seen first had even a glimpse of what had happened in his absence the guilt was buried under such an intense blood-thirst there was almost no room for anything else. Until she knocked on the door.

Caroline had been wandering the halls since she gave up on sleeping a couple hours after she went to bed. She had to be there tomorrow, those kids were her responsibility, but she couldn't deny that she was nervous about going back there. So many horrible things had happened to her there, she'd done so many horrible things to get out....she never wanted to go back. She certainly wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. Then she heard something, it sounded like a frustrated grunt. She moved toward the noise and found herself in the doorway of Klaus' room. He was painting like he was mad at the canvas, some modern abstract painting that was probably meant to convey emotion was was succeeding if that emotion was 'I'm gonna murder somebody'. She knocked on the door.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her, seeing for himself that she was alright quelled his rage because he knew he would be able to protect her from now on. However difficult she made it for him. He smiled a sleepy smile at her which she returned "Hello." "Hi, do you mind if I come in?" He gestured her inside "please. what can I do for you?" he asked. She looked down hesitantly then around the room, everywhere but in his eyes "I'm just feeling restless...with everything happening tomorrow...can't really sleep. Then I heard you up and I figured I could keep you company. If you don't mind" Klaus gave her a look that read 'If I don't mind? For god's sake I've been obsessed with you for twenty years. You're obviously welcome in my room', but what he said was 'well I'd consider myself lucky. Drink perhaps?". They spent the next couple of hours drinking and talking, he kept painting, but much more peacefully so. He'd started a new canvas and wouldn't let her look at it so she of course guessed he was painting her, but didn't make any accusations aloud to avoid the appearance of vanity. When she had been silent for a moment too long he looked over the canvas to find her sleeping on the small couch by the drink cart where she'd been sitting. He kept painting for a few moments, not wanting to disturb her, but then he decided that she couldn't be comfortable like that so he scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to his bed. He placed her gently in the bed, under the covers, and got in himself. He'd watch over her tonight, in case her restlessness was actually fear, and because he wanted to. She looked peaceful and he fell asleep smiling for the first time in he didn't know how long.

The next morning he woke up before she did and noted that she had cuddled into him in her sleep. She was nuzzled against his chest with his arm around her and she had this incredibly peaceful expression on her face. He couldn't wait to paint it, but didn't dare move. Then she stirred and opened her eyes, she smiled at him and softly said "good morning". He stroked her hair and returned in a gravelly morning voice "good morning luv" before kissing her hairline. He pulled back and she looked up at him, she hesitated for just a moment before touching his face and placing a kiss on his lips. He returned it gently, they broke apart, looked into each others eyes and smiled a little mischievously. When they kissed again it was passionate and eager, her rolled over on top of her and she moaned his name as he kissed her neck. Right at that moment Freya burst through the door. "Oh, god-, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Freya closed her eyes, but didn't leave. Klaus bit through gritted teeth "What the bloody hell are you still doing here." Caroline buried her face in his shoulder in embarrassment. "I-uh, Valerie's here, we were going to go over everything and head out. There's breakfast. I'll see you down there" She said quickly as she rushed out the door. Caroline started giggling uncontrollably and Klaus chided "It's not funny" Caroline waved her hand "No, no, I know it's not. Still we should really get down there". Klaus opened his mouth and closed it then extended his hand and gestured towards the door. "After you".

Down at breakfast they nailed down the details of the plan and the teams they'd split into and before they left Rebekah just had to whisper to Freya "Alright why does Klaus seem so pissed at you?" Freya blushed a little in response and gestured to him and Caroline "I, uh, interrupted something earlier". Realization dawned on Rebekah's face an instant before genuine joy for her brother, and all that was left to say was "About bloody time".


	15. Invasion of Augustine

They arrived where they knew Augustine would be and, as anticipated saw nothing, the cloaking spell was still in place and as they were not being escorted by a member of the family they were unable to see the building. Caroline piped in nervously "Okay, after you siphon the spell we should have about 25 minutes before the guards notice". Marcel added "Maybe longer given they'll be new" Caroline shook her head "No, I only had the vampire guards killed. There were always more human guards and they were always in charge". "Why only kill the vampire guards then?" Freya asked. Caroline shrugged "I couldn't find enough people that wanted to kill them. They're dicks, but they've only been dicks for 30 years and just haven't had the time to make those kinds of enemies. Besides, they're less of a threat, easier to kill, and having them around gives the doctors a false sense of security" Valerie spoke up then feeling a bit twitchy "Yes, not that this isn't fascinating, but as we are out in the open, I'd say we should get on with it." Caroline shook her head quickly and smiled "Oh, yeah, right sorry. Yeah, let's do this". Valerie began siphoning the spell and when they could break thorough Freya, Klaus, and Caroline went off towards the closest entrance and Marcel, Rebekah and Valerie went around back. 

They were past the main hallway and Caroline had lost count of how many guards had been killed. Freya was proving more deadly than Klaus, she was an extremely powerful witch, but she seemed to have become more powerful in her rage. Klaus had pretty well let his monster out too and Caroline was staring to feel as though her role in this was mostly just giving directions. "Where are the doctors?" Freya asked desperate for her vengeance, but Caroline responded "The prisoners are this way, they're the priority." After a moment of a stare down she conceded and pointed "That way, on the left". Freya broke down the door with a spell and Klaus broke the neck of the nurse. Dr. Milton adjusted his glasses and said "Well, it is impressive that you managed to make it this far, but security will be here any minute". Klaus stalked towards him and gestured towards the monitors with live feeds from the security cameras that showed Marcel, Rebekah, and Valerie tearing through the guards at the main station "Perhaps. If they weren't being slaughtered". He exhaled heavily and said in utter defeat "Make it quick". Klaus narrowed his eyes at him and bit out a simple "No" he fed him his blood and broke his neck. Caroline gasped "Klaus, what the hell?" Klaus gave her a smug and self-satisfied look, his own blood dripping from his mouth "Oh, did I not tell you. I'm going to chain him up at the compound, compel him to tell us all about the other locations and torture him for a few centuries for his crimes before I kill him". Freya smile evilly and said "Sounds fair to me" while Klaus cut off his hand. Caroline just stood there stunned for a second and the grabbed the hand "We'll talk about this later!" she said running over to the security panel to use the hand to execute a system override and perform a mass release on the cell doors. The security feature was put in place in case of fire, the system had been designed for a more traditional prison, assuming actual accountability for the lives of prisoners. In an Augustine prison if there was a fire they would simply let the test subjects die, but they had never reprogrammed the system. When the doors open the missing students, including Rafiel recognized Caroline and ran to her. She hugged the younger two and said "let's get you out of here". She took the children to wait in the car, wanting to spare them from seeing as much of the carnage as she could. The rest stayed behind to kill the rest of the staff. 

When all was said and done Klaus returned to the car with Rebekah and the body of Dr. Milton. "It's done. The prisoners are feeding on the bodies now so they won't ravage the town. They'll be sated by sundown when they're able to leave. At which point we can come back and burn the place down" Klaus summarized. Caroline nodded relieved "We should look through the files before we burn it, see if we can find anything about the other facilities." Klaus nodded "Agreed" he looked at the terrified children and smiled "but in the meantime how about we have take you back to the compound and get you something to eat." Caroline nodded and Klaus put Dr. Milton in the trunk. They drove back to the compound and got the kids set up with Rebekah. Klaus carried the body to the dungeon and got him chained up. Rafiel called Landon at the school and it was agreed that he and Hope would come down to see him and take him back to the school. Klaus and Caroline went back to the facility to help Marcel and Valerie with the files they'd need to go through. They were all looking for several hours but they managed to find some useful information about the next facility to target. They packed the files into the cars, Caroline spoke with the prisoners individually to make sure they all had somewhere to go after this, and when they were done Freya did as she promised and lit the place on fire. They all stood there watching it burn for several minutes feeling a certain quietude in their souls knowing that neither they nor their loved ones could ever be taken there again.

When they arrived back at the compound they found Hope and Landon in the living room with the rescued students. Hope was working on a spell to counteract the effects of the serum that slowed healing to help the prisoners who returned in worse shape than others. There were a few they had to take back to the compound because they couldn't make their own way home yet. When Hope saw Klaus she ran up and hugged him "Are you okay?" she asked. He laughed "Yes, sweetheart I'm fine. How is your friend doing?" She smiled and looked over at Raf and Landon "He's good. He'll be okay, thanks to you". Klaus had honestly never been happier, his daughter was happy and back under his roof, which he'd been sharing with the love of his life for the past few days. Even his siblings were finally back in the compound, with his adopted son and now brother in law Marcel. If only Kol and Elijah were here it would be perfect. Though he took solace in knowing Kol was happy and with the love of his life, and that he would likely see him again soon. Alas there remained dirty work to be done and so he went down to the dungeon and started bleeding Dr. Milton of vervain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I wrote this one really fast. Please let me know if there are grammatical errors or typos. I'll go back and fix them, I just didn't want to leave this on the back burner any longer. I need some room there! I wrote the past 3 chapters in a day so let me know if anything is confusing and I'll go back and take a second pass.


	16. The End

When Klaus ascended the staircase from the dungeon after leaving Dr. Milton bleeding he encountered Caroline at the top of the stairs. He inhaled sharply, put his hand out and said "I know what you're going to say -". She cut him off by kissing him abruptly, when she finally pulled away he continued, smiling, "Alright I didn't know what you were going to say". She chuckled lightly and tilted her head to the side "Oh no, you did. You can't keep him down there indefinitely playing out some stupid revenge fantasy." Klaus tried to interrupt at that point, about to launch into a long speech about how well deserved this revenge was, and sending a message to all who would dare harm his family in the future. He had considered Caroline to be in that category for a long time now. He was outraged that Dr. Milton would have dared to harm her and he would make him regret that mistake, but Caroline held out her hand to stop him from talking "uhp, wait. You can't keep him down there indefinitely, but you are right. We do need to get the information out of him to liberate the other six facilities before they catch on to what we've just done and this, as much as I hate it, is probably the fastest way. So we can fight about what to do with him later. When all that's done". Klaus' face broke out it a wicked grin and he responded "Whatever will we do in the meantime". Caroline kissed him, after a while she pulled back, took his hand and led him up to his room.

What they didn't know was that Hope had seen them kiss, and had seen them leave together. The next morning at breakfast everyone was together and everyone was happy. They lingered for hours catching up, laughing and making plans for the future. As much as Klaus loved having everyone under the same roof, it was the middle of the school year and it was decided that the students and Caroline would go back to the Salvatore school that afternoon. Hope took a moment after breakfast to pull Klaus aside and tell him "Hey, dad, I just wanted to let you know that I'm really happy that you and Caroline are together." he looked surprised and perhaps a bit embarrassed that she'd found out, he thought himself sneakier than that. "You don't have to hide it, or worry about how I'll react. I love Caroline, and I love you, and I haven't seen you smile this much in a really long time. I'm really happy that you're happy." Klaus nodded, smiled, and kissed the top of her head. After that he and Caroline weren't even a little bit subtle, decorum be damned, proper headmistress\parent relations be damned. They'd waited to long to be together and to be enjoy themselves again after all the tragedy they'd experienced in their lives to worry about such things. He was more publicly affectionate with her after than and while he didn't fail to notice a few looks from his siblings, he also didn't fail to notice that they ere supportive looks. His people were rooting for his contentment, and he was content indeed.

Klaus had decided to tag along on the trip back to mystic falls to spend time with Hope and Caroline under less dire circumstances, but first he had to deal with Dr. Milton. He compelled the necessary information out of him and promptly killed him. He would have liked to make him suffer, but it was not necessary and would've served as a distraction from his enjoyment of his family. He decided that there would be other opportunities, perhaps Joseph Augustine and his family, but for now, he'd enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Maybe he'd live this life a bit differently from the last. They had spoken with Valerie and it was decided that she and her coven would split up to take out the Augustine facilities in Barcelona, and Morocco. She'd left for the airport that morning. The information that Klaus had compelled included some details on the cloaking spells so a counter-spell could be cast and all that would be needed for the next six facilities was a witch, not a siphon, which meant that they could realistically break up into teams and take out the facilities in a coordinated international attack so that the Augustines would not have time to regroup. Marcel and Rebekah had agreed to take care of the facility closest to their home in the Maldives, which happened to be in rural India, they'd be leaving the next day as Marcel wanted to catch up with Vincent, but time was of the essence. Speaking of Vincent, they'd called him and he, Keelin and Freya had plans to gather their friends, werewolf and witch alike, and take out the third facility in Waco Texas. After Caroline and Klaus' road trip, which had been rather enjoyable as they were only escorting Hope back while Landon drove Raf and the other students. When Klaus arrived back at the school he met up with Kol and Davina who had come in from Columbia to help protect the school. Kol was as expected begrudgingly thrilled to see his brother alive and well, and after some bonding and bickering it was with regret that he and Davina returned to South America to take care of the facility there. However Klaus did inform Kol of the reunion he'd planned with Rebekah for the whole family in Rome that summer, and he and Davina agreed to attend so they wouldn't be separated for long, they had been torn apart by dark magic and death for far to long. Unfortunately that did leave one facility, the one in Sydney Australia. Even more unfortunately that meant that, as much as he hated it, Klaus would have to leave for a little while. However Caroline refused to be separated from him again, and she went with him. He hated leaving Hope after all he'd already missed but he knew she was in good hands, and that he would make quick work of this and promised to be back in just a few weeks. If that meant he took out the facility in a couple days and could squeeze in a romantic get away with Caroline, well that would be lovely.

Upon the successful dismantling of the Augustine empire Klaus and Caroline did return to mystic falls a few too short weeks later. Klaus found Caroline in the library after he'd had his reunion with Hope and with a heart full of gratitude said "Thank you Caroline". She turned around smiling and responded "What for?" He stepped toward her and breathed "For taking care of Hope in my absence. Before and after my death. You are the only one I ever could've trusted to do it and you did it exceptionally well." She smiled and embraced him responding "It has been a privilege Klaus, I mean that." she pulled away and asked "So, are you going to be sticking around for a little while. To spend time with Hope I mean" she said breaking eye contact. Klaus grinned and pulled her to him whispering "well,...that'll be one reason." 

And so began their next three years in Mystic falls. They went together to that family reunion in Rome and that is where Klaus proposed, but most of the rest of the time was spent serenely tending the home-front. Caroline was able to return wholeheartedly to her passion of running the school and looking after the students, particularly the scholarship students. She was able to be present as a parent to her twins and help Lizzie through her struggles with mental health. She was able to be there for Josie as she learned healthy boundaries, and for Hope as she learned to relax some of her boundaries. Hope excelled in school and in art. She graduated a year after her father came back and started college nearby. Klaus and Caroline were married in New Orleans with Kol officiating, as had become an odd family tradition. They honeymooned in Tokyo, having already been to Rome. By the time the twins graduated as well Caroline had pretty much used up the 'it's just good genes' excuse when it came to the people in the town where she was born wondering why she never seemed to age. She spoke with Ric and they decided that she would take a step back from the school for a while to try and find a cure for the twin merge. She had run into many dead ends before her ordeal with the Augustines, but it was time to pick the search back up. She couldn't give up hope, and she couldn't stop trying with the merge now only four years away. Just like that a new adventure began as she and Klaus spent the next few years of their lives travelling the globe, investigating the Gemini coven's origins and enjoying each other's company. They did eventually find the cure, but that is the beginning of another story.


End file.
